Columbia  ®[nibers(itp 

mti)ECitpofi5eto|9orb 


LIBRARY 


This  book  is  due  two  weeks  from  the  last  date 
stamped  below,  and  if  not  returned-fiMMMBBiii»^t  or 
before  that  time  a  fine  of  five  cents  a  daS^wTn  be  incurred. 


|APRaG,192%, 


APR  30  1524 


V 


NOV 


DEC  1  8 
'^'^'^  2.1  li)34 


r 


im 


lOrg 


I 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 

HUGUENOTS 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 

HUGUENOTS 

As  contained  in  two  addresses 
made  before  the  Huguenot  Societies 
of  South  Carolina  and  Pennsylvania 

"By 
HENRY  A.  DU  PONT 


Cambridge 

The  Riverside  Press 

MDCCCCXX 


:^^-z.f^^/ 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,   BY  HENRY  A    DU  PONT 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


0  3  -i^.  1? 


PREFACE 


l\S  the  history  of  the  Frencii  Huguenots 
from  the  Retonnation  to  the  Edict  of  Tol- 
eration in  1787  covers  a  period  of  some  two 
centuries  and  a  half^  it  is  obvious  that  any 
detailed  narrative  of  their  vicissitudes  and 
tribulations  must  of  necessity  be  a  long  one. 
Although  the  literature  of  Huguenot  history 
is  quite  extensive,  much  that  has  been  written 
deals  exclusively  with  special  phases  of  the 
subject  and  it  is  not  easy  to  find  anywhere  a 
concise  epitome  of  the  whole  story. 

I  am  republishing  herein  the  address  de- 
livered before  the  South  Carolina  Huguenot 
Society  in  1917,  as  well  as  that  made  before 
the  Huguenot  Society  of  Pennsylvania  at 
Valley  Forge  on  the  6th  of  May  last,  believ- 
ing that  the  two  addresses  taken  together,  in 
spite  of  some  unavoidable  repetitions,  will 
give  in  reasonably  small  compass  a  clear  and 
definite  resume  of  the  whole  subject. 

"  ,  H.  A.  Du  Pont 

Winterthur,  Delaware 
July  30,  1920 


v^  ^  ^ue  *^  ^  H^  "i/  ^  *^  ^  ^  v^  "^  iL^  «^  *^  <^  v^  ^  !^  w  ?^  ^  v^  4^  \£  sy 

jfK  gfft  ?ns  yK  ?fN  ^  y^  y^  7n^  jni  jtX  /H  ^  ^  ^  grVi  jtn  grS  gfN  ?iN  ?tK  ?fN  ^m  ?tn  yfi^  yn  grc 

Address  Before  the 

Huguenot  Society  of  South  Carolina 

At  its  Annual  Meeting 

At  Charleston,  S.  C. 

April  \^,  1917 

vj£  sue  age  ^jg  ^je  ai^  ^je  ^ji  ^ji  sijc  sue  sye  sue  ^^  iiie  ai^  ^^  hk  si^  sy^  su^  ays  ^x  sy?  s^  ^^  ^K 

gns  gfK  gfK  gre  ?iK  JlN  JfN  STK  ?TK  gTK  TIN  gf^  S^  ?m  ?TN  ?fK  gTK  ^K  JlK  giK  ?fN  gm  JfH  jf^  ?l\  JTN  gTN 


ADDRESS 


Mr.  President  a  n  d  F  e  llo  w-M  em- 
be  r  s  of  the  Huguenot  Society  of  South  Caro- 
lina, Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

W  H  I  L  E  the  "  Transactions  "  of  our  Soci- 
ety give  us  the  official  details  of  its  organiza- 
tion and  subsequent  progress,  its  inception 
and  continuance  must  be  ascribed,  in  the  last 
analysis,  to  a  certain  innate  sentiment  which 
impels  most  of  us  to  take  an  interest  in  all 
that  concerns  our  forefathers,  and  this  is  es- 
pecially the  case  when  those  whose  names  we 
bear,  and  whom  we  may  be  said  to  represent, 
were  men  of  the  piety,  integrity,  and  high 
character  of  our  Huguenot  ancestors.  Their 
entire  history  shows  that  they  were  not  merely 
individuals  of  blameless  lives  and  kindly  dis- 
positions, but  that  they  were  also  men  of 
special  courage  and  capacity,  who,  far  from 
believing  in  "peace  at  any  price,"  were  will- 
ing and  able  to  fight  for  their  religious  rights 

as  well 


4       Story    of    the    Huguenots 

as  well  as  to  make  any  sacrifice  of  worldly  ad- 
vantage or  of  material  things  in  order  to  attain 
them. 

During  the  thirty-two  years  of  the  Wars  of 
Religion,  the  Huguenots  were  valiant  soldiers 
in  the  field ;  and  though  the  changed  conditions 
of  a  later  era  precluded  an  appeal  to  arms  at  the 
time  of  the  Revocation,  nearly  two-thirds  of 
them  fled  from  their  native  country  to  escape 
persecution,  in  spite  of  the  desperate  efforts 
made  to  prevent  their  departure,  while  those 
who  remained  voluntarily  exposed  themselves  * 
to  greatly  increased  suffering  and  oppression 
rather  than  abandon  the  land  of  their  birth,  and 
stubbornly  resisted  all  attempts  to  compel 
them  to  forego  their  religious  convictions. 

Huguenot  history  may  be  divided  into 
four  periods,  which  will  be  discussed  in  suc- 
cession: First.  From  the  Reformation  to  the 
beginning  of  the  Wars  of  Religion  in  1562. 
Second.  From  1 562  to  the  promulgation  of 
the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1598.  Third.  From 
1598  to  the  Revocation  of  this  Edict  in  1685. 
Fourth.  From  the  Revocation  to  the  promul- 
gation of  the  Edict  of  Toleration  in  1787. 

The  first  period  begins  with  the  extraordi- 
nary 


Story    of    the    Huguenots       5 

nary  religious  upheaval  known  as  the  Refor- 
mation, which  was  of  slow  and  gradual  de- 
velopment and  extended  over  a  considerable 
term  of  years.  Originating  in  the  early  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  tliis  great  spiritual 
movement  steadily  progressed  until  its  largest 
proportions  were  reached,  in  France  at  least, 
between  1555"  and  1560.  During  the  first 
years  of  the  Reformation,  those  who  severed 
their  connection  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  were  persecuted  most  cruelly;  many 
were  burned  alive,  hanged  or  beheaded,  and 
many  more  brutally  whipped  in  public  or  cast 
into  prison.  In  spite  of  all  these  barbarities, 
the  seceders  from  the  established  church  be- 
came so  numerous  that  the  Catholics  found  it 
impossible  to  stem  the  tide,  and,  in  defiance 
of  the  authorities,  thousands  of  those  who 
protested  against  the  abuses  which  obtained 
in  the  Catholic  Church  held  their  religious  ex- 
ercises in  the  open  air.  jThese  "  protestants," 
who  were  originally  called  "Calvinists"  be- 
cause they  followed  the  teachings  of  Calvin, 
were  not  long  in  founding  a  national  religious 
organization  styled  the  "Reformed  Churches 
of  France,"  which  was  followed  by  the  estab- 
lishment 


6       Story    of   the    Huguenots 

lishment  of  Protestant  congregations  all  over 
the  kingdom.  The  members  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  were  better  known,  however,  as 
"Huguenots,"  an  appellation  given  them  for 
the  first  time  at  Tours  in  1560,  its  origin  and 
significance  still  being  involved  in  obscurity, 
although  it  has  been  a  subject  of  discussion 
for  more  than  three  centuries. 

Upon  the  death  s>f  Francis  II,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1 560,  the  whole  kingdom  of  France  was 
convulsed  by  the  doctrines  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, which  gave  rise  to  religious  controversies 
of  unbelievable  violence,  provoked  the  most 
vehement  disputes,  and  engendered  the  bitter- 
est animosities.  Families  were  divided  against 
themselves,  parents  and  children,  brothers  and 
sisters,  frequently  taking  opposite  sides  and 
often  severing  their  personal  relations.  So  in- 
tense was  the  nervous  strain  and  so  passion- 
ate were  the  feelings  aroused,  that  bloodshed 
became  inevitable,  as  the  questions  at  issue 
could  be  settled  only  by  an  appeal  to  arms. 

Early  in  1562,  the  second  period  of  French 
Huguenot  history,  that  of  the  Wars  of  Reli- 
gion, was  ushered  in  by  sanguinary  encoun- 
ters between    Catholics    and   Protestants   at 

4  Amiens, 


Story    of    the    Huguenots       7 

Amiens,  Tours,  and  other  places,  the  most 
serious  being  the  affray,  or  massacre,  as  it  is 
usually  called,  of  Vassy,  in  which  forty-nine 
were  killed  and  some  two  hundred  wounded, 
most  of  them  Calvinists. 

The  Wars  of  Religion,  once  begun,  dragged 
their  slow  length  along  with  varying  fortunes 
tor  some  thirty-two  years,  including  several 
truces  or  armistices  during  which  hostilities 
were  suspended.  Any  adequate  account  of 
that  protracted  contest  would  unduly  lengthen 
this  address,  and  no  mention  will  be  made  even 
of  its  most  important  military  episodes  beyond 
a  reference  to  the  memorable  siege  of  Rouen  in 
1 562  and  to  that  of  La  Rochelle  in  1 57^  when 
the  Catholics  failed  in  their  long-continued 
efforts  to  make  themselves  masters  of  that  city. 
Rouen,  however,  was  taken  by  assault  after  a 
desperate  defence  of  many  months  in  which 
thd  Huguenot  women  fought  on  the  ramparts 
beside  the  men  :  fhe  city  was  sacked  and  plun- 
dered and  great  numbers  of  Calvinkts  of  all 
ages  and  both  sexes  put  to  the  sword,  among 
them  two  of  my  own  ancestors. 

We  now  come  to  the  third,  period  of  Hu- 
guenot history,  dating  from  the  promulgation 

of  the 


8       Story    of    the    Huguenots 

of  the  famous  Edict  of  Nantes,  April  13, 
1598,  under  the  terms  of  which  the  Calvinists 
were  guaranteed,  among  other  things,  reli- 
gious toleration,  the  right  of  holding  public 
office  and  of  maintaining  one  church  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  every  town  or  city  with 
the  exception  of  Paris.  jpThe  beneficent  effects 
of  this  measure  were  evidenced  by  the  gen- 
eral religious  tranquillity  which  prevailed 
throughout  France  during  the  latter  part  of 
Henry  IV's  reign  as  well  as  during  that  of  his 
successor,  Louis  XIII,  who  issued  his  Edict 
of  Nismes  confirming  in  every  particular  that 
of  Nantes.)  Similar  conditions  prevailed  dur- 
ing the  fifst  years  of  the  sovereignty  of  Henry's 
grandson,  Louis  XIV,  whose  important  "  De- 
claration "  of  May,  1652,  acknowledged  in 
no  uncertain  terms  the  services  rendered  by 
the  Huguenots  in  the  support  of  the  Crown 
during  the  revolts  and  disturbances  which  had 
characterized  his  minority,  and  who  had  given, 
to  quote  his  own  words,  "signal  proofs  of 
their  affection  and  fidelity."  The  manifesto 
further  declared  that  it  was  his  will  "  that  they 
be  kept  and  maintained  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  "  and  "  notably  of  the 

public 


Story    of    the    Huguenots       9 

public  exercise  of  their  religion  despite  any 
and  all  decisions  or  decrees  to  the  contrary, 
either  of  our  council  or  of  the  courts."  The 
Huguenots,  on  their  side,  entertained  feelings 
of  unbounded  gratitude  to  Henry  IV,  the 
first  monarch  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  as 
well  as  to  his  descendants,  and  their  loyalty 
to  the  person  of  the  sovereign  which  had 
largely  originated  during  the  Wars  of  Reli- 
gion, was  of  a  most  extreme  and  passionate 
nature.  These  sentiments  were  inculcated  by 
the  Reformed  Churches  and  fostered  in  every 
way  by  the  Huguenot  ministers,  commonly 
called  "pasteurs." 

When,  however,  the  many  uprisings  and 
insurrections  set  on  foot  by  the  Catholic  sub- 
jects of  Louis  XIV  had  been  crushed  and  the 
power  of  the  Crown  had  become  infinitely 
greater  than  had  been  the  case  for  centuries, 
the  services  and  active  support  of  the  Hu- 
guenots were  no  longer  of  importance.  Tak- 
ing advantage  of  these  new  conditions,  the 
Roman  Catholic  hierarchy,  the  religious  or- 
ders, and  the  more  bigoted  portion  of  the 
laity,  inaugurated  a  campaign  for  the  abro- 
gation of  the   Edict  of  Nantes.  A  general 

assembly 


lo     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

assembly  of  the  Catholic  episcopate  and  clergy 
was  held  every  five  years  in  Paris  for  the 
consideration  and  discussion  of  religious  ques- 
tions, and  it  was  customary  on  these  occasions 
to  present  an  address  to  the  monarch  and  to 
vote  a  handsome  subsidy  to  the  royal  treas- 
ury, which  the  Church  could  well  afford  in 
view  of  its  ownership  of  nearly  one-third  of  the 
real  estate  of  the  kingdom.  In  addressing  the 
sovereign,  the  assembly  of  1655  made  the  fol- 
lowing representations  :  "  That  while  not  de- 
manding immediate  abolition  of  religious  lib- 
erty, because  we  do  not  believe  that  it  would 
be  easy  to  put  this  into  effect,  we  would  hope 
at  least  that  the  evil  be  not  allowed  to  make 
the  slightest  progress,  and,  if  the  royal  author- 
ity cannot  cut  it  off  at  a  single  blow,  that  it 
will  do  its  utmost  to  enfeeble  and  destroy  it  lit- 
tle by  little."  Although  no  official  action  was 
taken  in  response  to  the  above  demand,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  but  that  private  assurances 
were  given :  at  all  events,  from  that  time  for- 
ward the  policy  of  the  Government  strictly 
conformed  to  the  clerical  programme  just 
stated,  and  in  furtherance  thereof  a  long  series 
of  royal  decrees  and  "Declarations  "  gradually 

nullified 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     ii 

nullified  and  destroyed  the  religious  and  per- 
sonal rights  of  the  Huguenots,  which  had 
been  guaranteed  by  Henry  IV  and  his  suc- 
cessors. 

The  limits  of  this  narrative  will  only  permit 
a  brief  statement  of  the  more  important  of 
these  measures  of  persecution.  In  direct  con- 
travention of  the  Edict  of  Nantes^U  Prot- 
estants were  declared  ineligible  for  appoint- 
ment to  any  public  office,  no  matter  how 
insignificant,  were  excluded  from  the  bar  as 
well  as  from  the  practice  of  medicine,  and 
were  not  allowed  to  become  booksellers  or 
printers.  If  a  Huguenot  were  seriously  ill,  it 
became  the  duty  of  a  judge  or  other  public 
official  accompanied  by  two  witnesses  to  in- 
trude into  the  sick  chamber  to  ascertain 
whether  the  sufferer  desired  the  presence  of 
the  Catholic  parish  priest;  when  death  ensued, 
funeral  services  were  alone  permitted  during 
the  very  early  morning  hours  or  after  dark  at 
night,  and  not  more  than  thirty  relatives  and 
friends  could  attend.  Except  within  a  church 
edifice,  all  meetings  for  prayer,  for  the  reading 
of  the  Bible,  or  for  any  other  religious  pur- 
pose, were  strictly  prohibited  under  penalty 

of  nine 


12     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

of  nine  years'  banishment  from  the  locahty  in 
which  the  meeting  was  held,  of  corporal  pun- 
ishment, and  of  a  fine  of  three  thousand  livres.  / 
Any  Huguenot  who  had  abjured  his  faith  was 
prohibited  from  returning  to  the  same  under 
any  pretext,  this  being  deemed  an  act  of  "apos- 
tasy "  and  punished  by  banishment  from  the 
kingdom,  confiscation  of  property,  and  pub- 
lic penance,  which  last  penalty  consisted  of 
an  exposure  for  hours  to  the  jeers  of  the  mul- 
titude in  some  prominent  place,  torch  in  hand 
and  rope  about  the  waist,  the  victim's  sole 
attire  being  a  scanty  shirt. 

So  far  as  the  Reformed  Church  was  con- 
cerned, one  of  the  first  steps  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  to  forbid  any  meetings  of  the  Na- 
tional or  Provincial  Synods  and  Colloquies, 
although  these  bodies  were  recognized  specifi- 
cally by  the  Edict  of  Nantes:  this  was  fol- 
lowed later  by  the  practical  abolition  of  the 
Consistories  as  well  as  by  the  confiscation  of 
all  Huguenot  church  property.  The  "pas- 
teurs  "  of  the  Reformed  Church,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, were  the  subjects  of  special  restriction : 
they  were  prohibited  from  making  any  refer- 
ence to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  except 

in  the 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     13 

in  the  most  respectful  terms  and  from  taking 
any  other  title  than  that  of  "Minister  of  the 
Pretended  Reformed  Church";  were  not  per- 
mitted to  preach  anywhere  except  in  their 
own  churches  or  "temples,"  nor  to  make  use 
of  any  clerical  garment  save  an  ordinary  black 
coat,  which  was  not  to  be  worn  outside  of  the 
house  of  worship.  The  "pasteurs"  also  were 
held  responsible  personally  should  any  Cath- 
olic join  the  Huguenot  Church  or  attend  any 
of  its  services  under  pain  of  public  penance, 
confiscation  of  property,  life  banishment,  and 
the  demolition  of  the  sacred  edifice,  the  ex- 
treme severities  of  these  penalties  being  an 
indirect  tribute,  perhaps,  to  their  powers  of 
persuasion.  Ot  all  the  measures  of  persecu- 
tion, however,  the  worst  was  that  of  June  17, 
1681,  which  authorized  the  "conversion"  of 
any  Huguenot  child  over  seven  years  of  age 
by  forcibly  taking  it  away  from  the  parents 
and  placing  it  in  a  Catholic  institution,  the 
family  paying  all  the  expenses :  this  decree 
contained  the  incredible  statement  that  chil- 
dren of  those  tender  ages  were  "competent 
to  decide  for  themselves  in  regard  to  such  an 
important  matter  as  their  salvation," 

The 


14     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

The  emigration  of  Huguenots  to  foreign 
parts  was  the  practical  result  of  all  these  in- 
iquities: it  began  in  1656,  soon  after  the  new 
policy  of  the  Government  went  into  effect, 
and,  although  comparatively  insignificant  at 
first,  became  more  and  more  appreciable  as 
time  went  on.  While  every  effort  was  made 
to  prevent  the  departure  of  the  Protestants, 
it  is  beHeved  that  about  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  Huguenots  left  France  previ- 
ous to  the  Revocation,  the  fugitives  becom- 
ing much  more  numerous  after  the  issuance 
of  the  abominable  edict  in  regard  to  the  kid- 
napping of  children.  As  early  as  1669  all 
French  subjects  were  forbidden  to  leave  the 
kingdom  and  take  up  their  residence  in  for- 
eign parts  under  penalty  of  death,  confisca- 
tion of  property,  and  permanent  loss  of  na- 
tionality, the  decree  being  general  in  its  terms, 
as  the  Government  was  unwilling  to  admit 
that  its  measures  of  persecution  were  giving 
rise  to  an  exodus  of  the  Protestants.  A  later 
decree,  which  appeared  in  1682,  was  more 
specific,  as  it  referred  to  the  Huguenots  as 
"•  those  in  error  who  have  been  leaving  the 
country  in  utter  disregard  of  the  salvation  of 

their 


Story    of    the    Huguenots      15 

their  souls,  of  their  true  personal  interests,  and 
of  the  loyalty  which  they  owe  to  their  sove- 
reign." This  last  manifesto  changed  the  death 
penalty,  so  far  as  heads  of  families  were  con- 
cerned, to  confinement  in  the  galleys  for  life, 
and  directed  the  imposition  of  heavy  fines 
upon  all  those  who  assisted  "those  in  error" 
to  escape.  A  third  decree  issued  a  few  months 
later  nullified  all  transfers  of  real'estate  made 
by  the  persecuted  Huguenots  within  a  year 
previous  to  their  flight,  and  openly  stated  that 
this  was  done  "to  prevent  the  departure  to 
foreign  countries  of  our  subjects  who  belong 
to  the  Pretended  Reformed  religion." 

The  destruction  of  the  religious  liberty  of 
the  Huguenots  having  been  achieved  by  the 
measures  just  mentioned,  a  formal  announce- 
ment of  the  fact  was  not  long  delayed.  On 
the  18th  of  October,  1685,  Louis  XIV  affixed 
his  signature  to  the  Edict  of  Revocation, 
which  declared  null  and  void  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  as  well  as  all  subsequent  confirma- 
tions of  the  same.  Under  the  terms  of  this 
wicked  and  insensate  measure,  fraught  with 
so  much  evil  and  disaster  to  the  French  na- 
tion, all  Huguenot  churches  were  demolished, 

all 


i6     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

all  religious  meetings  forbidden,  all  Protes- 
tant schools  closed,  and  all  ministers  of  the 
Reformed  Church  ordered  to  leave  the  coun- 
try within  a  fortnight.  The  penalties  for  apos- 
tasy and  for  expatriation  were  re-confirmed, 
and  it  was  specified  that  all  Huguenot  chil- 
dren were  to  be  brought  up  as  Catholics. 

This  calamitous  document,  which  inaugu- 
rated the  fourth  and  last  period  of  Huguenot 
history,  terminated  with  the  absolutely  false 
statement  that  "  our  subjects  of  the  Pretended 
Reformed  religion  are  permitted,  until  it  shall 
please  God  to  enlighten  them,  to  reside  in  any 
and  all  parts  of  our  kingdom,  pursue  their 
avocations  and  possess  their  property  without 
being  restrained  or  troubled  on  account  of  the 
said  Pretended  Reformed  religion,  upon  the 
condition,  now  stated,  that  they  do  not  take 
part  in  its  services  nor  meet  together  for 
prayer  or  other  religious  purpose  of  any  na- 
ture whatsoever."  Notwithstanding  this  assur- 
ance, no  doubt  intended  to  give  the  Govern- 
ment some  standing  in  the  eyes  of  Protestant 
Europe,  troops  were  already  under  orders 
in  many  parts  of  France  to  participate  in 
the  forcible  conversion  of  the   Protestants. 

The 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     17 

/The  method  employed  was  very  simple:  the 
heads  of  the  Huguenot  families  were  called 
together  and  notified  that  unless  acts  of  abju- 
ration were  signed  within  a  brief  period  (in 
Rouen  they  were  given  only  two  hours), 
troops  would  be  quartered  in  their  homes. 
As  at  first  no  signatures  could  be  had,  the 
soldiers  forced  their  way  into  the  Huguenot 
domiciles  and  proceeded  to  take  possession, 
everything  being  permitted  save  rape  and 
murder :  they  were  encouraged  to  waste  pro- 
visions, destroy  furniture,  and  appropriate  per- 
sonal belongings,  as  well  as  to  insult,  annoy, 
and  even  torture  at  will  the  unhappy  inmates. 
Resistance  meant  imprisonment,  confiscation 
of  property,  and  permanent  separation  of  par- 
ents and  children  by  the  confinement  of  the 
latter  in  Catholic  institutions.  So  great  were 
the  horrors  of  this  diabolical  form  of  persecu- 
tion and  so  acute  the  suffering  involved,  that 
practically  all  the  members  of  the  Reformed 
Church,  including  those  who  fled  the  country 
later,  affixed  their  signatures  to  acts  of  abju- 
ration./ 

The  use  of  troops  as  just  described,  was 
called  a  "  dragonnade,"  because  the  first  sol- 
diers 


i8     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

diers  so  employed  were  dragoons  (dragons  in 
French),  and  in  this  connection  it  is  appro- 
priate to  quote  the  words  of  a  Catholic  prelate, 
the  saintly  Fenelon,  who  remarked  that  "it 
would  be  as  easy  for  the  King,  by  this  method, 
to  convert  his  subjects  to  Mohammedanism 
as  to  Catholicism." 

As  an  immediate  result  of  the  Revocation, 
a  large  majority  of  the  Huguenots  made  fran- 
tic efforts  to  leave  the  country,  which,  how- 
ever, was  no  easy  matter,  as  the  frontiers  and 
seacoasts  were  closely  watched.  While  great 
numbers  died  of  the  fatigue  and  exposure 
incident  to  their  flight  or  were  killed  by  the 
armed  guards,  and  while  still  greater  numbers 
were  put  in  prison,  the  departing  Protestants 
were  in  such  multitudes  that  the  immense 
majority  could  not  be  prevented  from  escap- 
ing, although  many  were  compelled  to  under- 
go much  privation  and  suffering. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  all 
of  the  Huguenots  were  of  the  same  mind: 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  them  refused  at  any 
cost  either  to  abandon  the  land  of  their  birth 
or  to  give  up  their  Protestant  faith.  Although 
they  had  become  nominal  Catholics  by  virtue 

of  their 


Story    of    the    Huguenots      19 

of  their  abjuration  under  duress,  and  were 
styled  by  the  authorities  "Rehgionnaires," 
or  "New  CathoHcs,"  they  never  wavered  for 
a  moment  and  absolutely  declined  to  perform 
any  of  the  religious  duties  of  the  Catholic 
Church  or  to  attend  its  services,  but  main- 
tained their  Protestant  faith  by  family  prayers 
and  secret  exhortations  in  the  seclusion  of 
their  homes. 

While  the  members  of  the  Reformed 
Church  who  had  emigrated  were  in  full  en- 
joyment of  religious  freedom  as  well  as  of 
the  protection  afforded  them  by  the  laws  of 
the  countries  in  which  they  had  taken  refuge, 
the  Huguenots  who  remained  in  France  were 
subjected  to  all  the  former  methods  of  per- 
secution as  well  as  to  new  and  cruel  expedi- 
ents expressly  devised  to  still  further  harass 
them.  I  shall  endeavor  in  a  few  words  to  give 
some  idea  of  their  deplorable  situation,  it  be- 
ing difficult  in  this  enlightened  age  to  fully 
realize  the  shocking  conditions  which  then 
obtained. 

If  a  Protestant  child  were  taken  to  the 
Catholic  church  for  baptism,  the  priest  per- 
formed the  ceremony  and  then  entered  in  the 

records 


20     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

records  that  the  infant  just  christened  was  the 

"bastard  son  (or  daughter)  of and  his 

concubine,"  which  meant  that  the  parents 
had  been  married  by  a  Huguenot  "pasteur" 
and  not  by  a  CathoHc  priest.  Needless  to  say, 
after  a  few  such  experiences  no  Protestant 
child  was  presented  for  baptism  in  the  Cath- 
olic churches,  except,  perhaps,  in  some  of  the 
larger  cities  where  the  clergy  were  less  intol- 
erant. If  a  Huguenot  couple  wished  to  marry, 
the  priest  would  not  officiate  until  they  had 
made  confession,  taken  the  communion,  and 
undergone  a  religious  probation  not  required 
of  Catholics,  its  length  depending  upon  the 
will  of  the  bishop  and  being  prolonged  some- 
times for  years.  During  fatal  illness  any  eccle- 
siastic had  full  authority  to  force  his  way  into 
the  house  and  demand  that  the  patient  take 
the  last  sacraments  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  if  these  were  refused  or  the  sufferer  ex- 
pressed his  intention  of  dying  in  the  faith  of 
the  Reformed  Church,  appeal  could  be  made, 
as  soon  as  life  was  extinct,  to  the  revolting 
Edict  of  April  29,  1686,  which  decreed  that 
"legal  proceedings  should  be  instituted  against 
their    corpses"    and    sentences    pronounced 

denying 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     21 

denying  them  Christian  burial,  and  directing 
that  the  Hteless  body,  in  a  state  of  nudity, 
should  be  exposed  to  the  desecrations  ot  the 
mob  and  then  dragged  on  a  sled  to  the  place 
known  as  a  "voirie"  where  dead  animals  and 
other  ofFal  were  thrown.  Even  when  there  was 
no  interference  with  the  remains,  the  inter- 
ment of  Protestants  was  not  permitted  in  any 
Catholic  church  or  cemetery,  and  their  burials 
took  place  at  night  in  some  unfrequented  place 
with  no  other  ceremony  than  the  prayers  of 
a  few  relatives  or  friends.  Another  novel  form 
of  persecution  was  the  practical  denial  of 
medical  attendance  to  the  unhappy  Protes- 
tants under  the  provisions  of  a  "Declaration" 
which  forbade  the  physician  or  surgeon  to 
make  any  further  visits  if  at  his  second  call 
he  was  not  furnished  with  a  certificate  show- 
ing that  the  patient  had  made  confession. 

Perhaps  the  hardest  thing,  however,  which 
the  non-emigrating  Huguenots  had  to  endure, 
was  the  systematic  abduction  of  their  children 
under  the  provisions  of  the  monstrous  Edict 
of  1681,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made  pre- 
viously and  which  was  enforced  with  much 
greater  frequency  after  the  Revocation.  The 

homes 


11      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

homes  of  the  Huguenots  were  surrounded  at 
night  by  pohcemen,  often  headed  by  priests, 
who  deUberately  broke  into  the  houses  and 
carried  off  the  screaming  children  despite  the 
tears  and  protestations  of  their  parents.  For 
more  than  two  generations  the  evil  spectre 
of  a  possible  seizure  of  their  offspring  haunted 
every  French  Protestant  household  in  which 
young  children  dwelt ! 

One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  this 
epoch  of  Huguenot  history  was  the  admir- 
able courage  and  devotion  of  many  Hugue- 
not ministers  and  lay  preachers  who,  taking 
their  lives  in  their  hands,  travelled  in  disguise 
throughout  France  and  officiated  at  secret 
meetings  held  in  woods,  quarries,  and  out-of- 
the-way  places.  Although  most  of  these  brave 
ministers  perished  on  the  scaffold  and  many 
of  the  worshippers  were  seized  and  sent  to 
the  galleys  for  life,  the  movement  went  on 
and  could  not  be  suppressed. 

As  it  was  impossible  for  any  self-respect- 
ing, conscientious  French  Protestant  to  marry 
or  to  have  his  children  baptized  in  a  legal 
way,  these  ceremonies  were  performed  in  se- 
cret (au  desert)  by  their  own  ministers  who 

attended 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     23 

attended  to  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  faithful ; 
and  as  time  went  on  more  than  a  million  of 
French  Huguenots  had  no  civil  status  under 
the  laws  of  their  country.  In  February,  1785, 
Lafayette  wrote  to  Washington  as  follows: 
"The  French  Protestants  are  the  victims 'of 
an  intolerable  despotism :  although  for  the 
moment  not  openly  persecuted,  their  mar- 
riages are  not  legal:  their  wills  are  null  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law  :  their  children  are  considered 
as  bastards  and  their  persons  as  subjects  for 
the  gallows."  In  October  of  the  following 
year,  the  Baron  de  Breteuil,  one  of  the  min- 
isters of  Louis  XVI  and  a  Catholic  by  reli- 
gion, made  his  celebrated  report  on  the  terri- 
ble condition  of  the  Huguenots,  in  which  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  title  alone  of 
the  last  degree  of  Louis  XIV,  dated  March  8, 
1715,  "was  enough  to  make  one  shudder." 
Although  his  Prime  Minister  was  a  Catholic 
archbishop,  Louis  XVI,  infinitely  to  his  cred- 
it, issued  his  Edict  of  Toleration  in  Novem- 
ber, 1787,  in  spite  of  the  determined  opposi- 
tion of  many  influential  court  people  and 
members  of  parliament,  as  well  as  of  the  whole 
Catholic  hierarchy  with  a  few  honorable  ex- 
ceptions. 


24     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

ceptions.  Under  the  terms  of  this  Edict, 
French  Protestants  were  permitted  to  exer- 
cise freely  any  profession  or  trade,  to  contract 
legal  marriages  before  the  civil  authorities, 
and  to  rehabilitate  legally  the  secret  matri- 
monial unions  and  baptisms  of  the  past,  to 
register  the  births  of  their  children,  and  to 
enjoy  the  right  of  Christian  burial  in  their  own 
cemeteries  and  at  such  hours  as  they  deemed 
proper.  Thus  Louis  XVI,  at  a  single  blow, 
put  an  end  to  the  vile  and  atrocious  sys- 
tem under  which  the  non-emigrating  Hugue- 
nots and  their  descendants  had  been  perse- 
cuted so  bitterly  and  so  unrelentingly  for  more 
than  one  hundred  and  one  years.  He  also 
announced  his  intention  of  restoring  the  con- 
fiscated property  and  of  extending  other  meas- 
ures of  relief,  but  the  outbreak  of  the  Revo- 
lution precluded  further  action. 

While,  as  Lafayette  said,  the  French  Prot- 
estants were  "  the  victims  of  an  intolerable 
despotism,"  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  empha- 
sized that  they  never  yielded,  nor  ever  for 
one  instant  thought  of  yielding,  and  that  from 
father  to  son  for  three  generations  they  re- 
sisted religious  persecution   with  undaunted 

spirit 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     25 

spirit  and  inflexible  determination,  until  at 
last  the  long,  hard  contest  was  decided  in  their 
favor.  Where  in  the  pages  of  history  can  we 
find  a  braver  and  more  persistent  resistance  to 
oppression,  or  a  people  more  strongly  ani- 
mated by  the  love  of  their  country  and  the 
fear  of  their  God'?  With  this  in  mind,  it  is 
difTicult  to  understand  the  action  of  the  Hu- 
guenot Society  of  America  in  denying  to  the 
posterity  of  these  heroic  and  long-suflering 
brother  Huguenots  admission  to  its  member- 
ship. Under  the  constitution  of  that  Society, 
as  originally  adopted  in  May,  1883,  ^^^  '"^P" 
resentatives  of  French  families,  whose  pro- 
fession of  Protestant  faith  was  anterior  to  the 
Edict  of  Toleration,  were  eligible  for  member- 
ship; but  when  the  constitution  was  amended, 
April  13,  1908,  this  provision  was  eliminated, 
thus  excluding  the  descendants  of  the  non- 
emigrating  Huguenots  who  for  more  than  a 
century  had  fought  to  the  finish  the  great  bat- 
tle of  religious  freedom.' 

'  Since  the  publication  of  this  address,  the  above  exclu- 
sion has  been  happily  terminated  by  a  further  amendment 
to  the  constitution  of  the  Huguenot  Society  of  America, 
adopted  on  the  14th  of  April,  1919. 

Let 


26     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

Let  me  now  call  your  attention  to  the  spirit 
of  toleration  which  was  a  special  characteris- 
tic of  our  Huguenot  ancestors.  While  most 
tenacious  of  their  own  religious  views,  they 
were  willing  always  that  others  should  have 
the  same  privilege,  and  these  sentiments  are 
plainly  revealed  in  a  letter,  dated  March  13, 
1713,  of  a  many-times  removed  great-uncle, 
Abraham  du  Pont,  the  first  of  my  family  in 
South  Carolina.  Should  we  not  then  —  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  as  a  tribute  to  those  who 
have  gone  before  us — strive  to  cultivate  a 
spirit  of  broad  liberality  and  forbearance  in 
matters  of  religion'? 

Will  you  permit  me  to  say,  in  conclusion, 
that  Abraham  du  Pont,  in  the  letter  to  which 
reference  has  just  been  made,  was  not  very  far 
wrong  when  he  wrote  as  follows  from  his  plan- 
tation in  St.  James  Parish,  Goose  Creek,  to  his 
brother  at  Rouen:  "Nous  apprenons  qu'on 
ne  vous  laisse  pas  en  repos  et  qu'on  renou- 
velle  de  temps  a  autre  quelque  moyen  de 
chagrin.  II  faut  avouer  que  cet  esprit  de  per- 
secution, si  eloigne  des  veritables  principes 
du  christianisme,  est  semblable  a  son  auteur 
qui  n'est  jamais  en  repos  et  ne  saurait  laisser 

les 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     27 

les  homines  tranquilles.  Le  bon  Dieu  vous 
console  et  mette  fin  a  nos  maux  et  veuille 
pardonner  a  nos  ennemis." 


gTK  ^  ^TK  JTK  yvK  Jr\    ■'^   jn%  yr\  gTN  i^K  jrK  gTC  aTK  JTC  ?tK  ?tK  JTC  3TN  ?IK  JTC  gfK  ?TK  glX  gfts  yK  ?TK 

Address  Before  the 

Huguenot  Society  of  Pennsylvania 

At  the  Meeting 

Held  at  Valley  Forge,  Pa. 

May  6,  1920 

H^  H^  *0g  jj^  ^  ^  ^<^  ^  ^  ^  ^^^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^<X^  ^^  X>g  S^  *i^  JQ*  X<  SQg 
^  gfx  ^  ?TX  ?n^  JTC  g^  ^  yN  ^  jfN  i^  ^Tt  gfn  ?TC  ?m  ^  yVi  gf^  ?r\  TTk  yn  ^  ?^  gT\  g?K  jt^ 


AD  DRESS 


/ 

Mr.  President  and  Members  of  the 
Huguenot  Society  of 'Pennsy/vaniay  h3.d'ies  and 
Gentlemen : 

/\.S  we  are  met  here  under  your  auspices, 
the  most  fitting  and  appropriate  theme  for 
my  address  would  seem  to  be  a  discussion  of 
the  history  and  character  of  those  from  whom 
your  Society  takes  its  name. 

The  French  people  who  abandoned  the 
Catholic  Church  at  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion and  their  descendants  were  known  as 
"  Huguenots."  While  there  is  no  mystery 
connected  with  their  personality,  the  origin 
and  meaning  of  the  name  they  bore  have  been 
for  centuries  matters  of  endless  dispute  and  are 
still  undetermined.  There  is  a  very  large  diffu- 
sion of  Huguenot  blood  in  the  United  States 
—  much  greater,  in  fact,  than  is  generally  sup- 
posed. In  the  last  half  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, at  least  six  independent  settlements  of 

Huguenots 


32      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

Huguenots  were  made  in  this  country  from 
Massachusetts  to  South  CaroHna,  and  during 
the  seven  or  eight  generations  which  havecome 
and  gone  since  those  days,  the  descendants  of 
the  original  settlers  have  increased  and  mul- 
tiplied to  a  marvellous  extent.  In  addition  to 
the  emigration  under  direct  Huguenot  aus- 
pices, a  great  number  of  French  Protestants 
came  to  New  York  with  the  Dutch  settlers 
and  to  Pennsylvania  with  the  refugees  from 
the  Palatinate.  Many  of  these  people,  and 
particularly  in  the  latter  State,  were  Hugue- 
nots who  had  fled  to  Germany  at  the  Revo- 
cation of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  and  had  again 
become  refugees  on  account  of  the  devasta- 
tion of  the  Palatinate  during  the  latter  years 
of  the  long  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 

In  an  essay  on  the  "  Distribution  of  Ability 
in  the  United  States,"  Henry  Cabot  Lodge 
makes  a  statement  which  should  be  highly 
satisfactory  to  your  Society.  It  is  based  on  a 
very  painstaking  analysis  of  "Appleton's  Cy- 
clopsedia  of  American  Biography"  and  reads 
as  follows:  "Indeed,  we  find  that  people  of 
French  blood  exceed  absolutely,  in  the  abil- 
ity produced,  all  the  other  races  represented 

except 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     23 

except  the  English  and  Scotch-Irish,  and  show 
a  percentage  in  proportion  to  their  total  orig- 
inal immigration  much  higher  than  that  of 
any  other  race," 

Among  the  posterity  of  the  Huguenot  emi- 
grants are  included  no  less  than  four  Pres- 
idents of  the  United  States,  Tyler,  Grant,  Gar- 
field, and  Roosevelt,  whose  descent  in  the 
female  line  is  respectively  traced  to  the  Hu- 
guenot families  of  Comtesse,  De  la  Noix 
(Delano),  Ballou,  and  De  Veaux;  three  of 
the  five  Presidents  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress, John  Jay,  Henry  Laurens,  and  EHas 
Boudinot;  several  Associate  Justices  of  our 
Supreme  Court;  numerous  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives in  Congress;  many  members  of 
the  Cabinet,  ambassadors,  ministers  to  foreign 
countries,  and  governors  of  the  different  states; 
two  of  our  greatest  generals,  Sherman  and 
Pershing;  thousands  of  officers  of  the  army, 
from  Marion,  Huger,  and  others  of  Revolu- 
tionary fame,  down  to  our  own  times;  and  a 
very  large  number  of  naval  commanders,  many 
of  high  rank  and  achievement,  including  De- 
catur, Du  Pont,  Dewey,  and  Schley.  To  the 
long  list  of  those  who  have  gained  distinction 

in  the 


34      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

in  the  public  service  are  to  be  appended  also 
the  names  of  multitudes  of  Huguenot  de- 
scendants in  private  life  who  have  shed  lustre 
upon  the  bar,  the  pulpit,  and  the  medical  pro- 
fession, or  whose  learning  and  capacity  have 
rendered  them  prominent  in  literary  pursuits, 
in  the  education  of  youth,  in  scientific  and 
commercial  avocations  as  well  as  in  the  man- 
agement and  direction  of  our  great  industries 
and  railways,  not  forgetting  those  who  have 
largely  contributed  to  the  public  welfare  by 
the  successful  development  of  agriculture. 

While  a  widespread  interest  in  all  that  con- 
cerns our  forefathers  has  led  to  the  establish- 
ment in  this  country  of  several  Huguenot 
societies  which  serve  to  nurture  and  keep  alive 
the  memories  of  the  past,  it  is  believed  that 
their  entire  membership  comprises  but  a  small 
percentage  of  the  great  number  of  Americans 
of  Huguenot  descent.  There  are  some,  per- 
haps, whose  interest  in  these  societies  consists 
largely  in  the  natural  satisfaction  they  take  in 
tracing  their  lineage  to  a  French  Protestant 
forefather  who  freely  sacrificed  all  his  worldly 
prospects  and  possessions  for  the  sake  of  his 
religious  convictions.  There  are  many,  how- 
ever. 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     35 

ever,  to  whom  genealogical  details  do  not 
strongly  appeal,  but  who  would  perhaps  take 
a  more  active  interest  in  the  high  character 
and  noble  lives  of  their  Huguenot  ancestors 
had  they  a  better  conception  ot  the  religious, 
political,  and  economic  aspects  of  their  his- 
tory. 

The  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  for  instance, 
and  the  events  which  immediately  succeeded 
it,  constitute  an  interesting  episode  of  the 
past,  easily  followed  and  not  difficult  to  re- 
member; but  the  story  of  the  Huguenots, 
which  covers  nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries, 
is  much  more  complicated.  Although  it  is  by 
no  means  easy  to  fix  in  our  minds  a  clear  and 
compact  idea  of  its  main  features,  the  task  is 
simplified  by  taking  into  consideration  the 
four  general  periods  into  which  the  subject  is 
logically  divisible,  as  was  pointed  out  in  my 
address  before  the  South  Carolina  Huguenot 
Society  some  three  years  ago. 

The  first  of  these  periods,  extending  from 
the  Reformation  to  the  beginning  of  the  Wars 
of  Religion,  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  general 
history  of  that  great  religious  upheaval  which 
convulsed  Europe  and  reached  its  apogee  in 

France 


36      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

France  between  1555  and  1560.  The  next 
period  is  inextricably  entwined  with  the  mih- 
„tary  and  political  events  of  the  Wars  ot  Reli- 
gion which  began  in  1562  and  ended  with 
the  promulgation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  The 
third  extends  from  the  issuance  of  that  Edict 
in  1598  until  its  Revocation  in  1685,  and  in- 
cludes the  sad  story  of  broken  faith  and  bit- 
ter persecution  under  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV, 
followed  by  the  voluntary  expatriation  of  a 
large  majority  of  the  members  of  the  French 
Reformed  Church.  The  last  period  begins 
with  the  Revocation  and  terminates  in  1787 
upon  the  promulgation  by  Louis  XVI  ot  his 
just  and  merciful  Edict  of  Toleration. 

A  full  and  complete  account  of  our  Hu- 
guenot forefathers,  even  without  going  into 
any  great  detail,  cannot  be  adequately  or  satis- 
factorily given  within  the  limits  of  an  ordi- 
nary discourse/  After  speaking  of  the  found- 
ing and  organization  of  their  church  arid  of 
some  of  their  characteristics  and  idealsMhis 
address  will  conclude  with  a  brief  mention  of 
the  fourth  and  last  period  of  Huguenot  his- 
tory, and  especially  of  the  trials  and  tribula- 
tions of  the  half-million  of  French  Protes- 
tants 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     37 

tants  who  refused  to  abandon  their  native  hind 
at  any  cost,  a  subject  which  has  not  received 
a  great  deal  of  attention  in  this  country. 

The  seceders  from  the  Catholic  Church 
were  originally  called  "Calvinists"  because 
they  had  accepted  the  teachings  of  Calvin;, 
and  it  is  obvious  that  from  the  very  beginning 
they  must  have  met  in  their  respective  locali- 
ties for  counsel,  prayerful  discussion,  and  doc- 
trinal exercises.  The  first  permanent  religious 
unit,  styled  a  "  Consistory,"  was  organized  at 
Paris  in  1555,  every  member  of  the  congre- 
gation having  an  equal  voice  in  the  selection 
of  the  pastor,  elders,  and  deacons.  As  might 
have  been  expected,  similar  units  were  soon 
formed  in  other  places,  all  of  which  were 
speedily  drawn  together  in  the  interest  of 
common  defence  as  well  as  in  that  of  uni- 
formity of  docrine  and  church  government. 

The  first  "  National  Synod "  of  the  Hu- 
guenots assembled  in  1559:  it  prepared  and 
issued  a  confession  of  faith,  setting  forth  the 
religious  doctrines  of  the  "Reformed  Churches 
of  France"  (this  being  the  official  title)  and 
adopted  a  general  plan  of  organization  and  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline   as  given  in  Felice's 

"History 


38      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

"History  of  the  Protestants  of  France": 
from  which  the  following  brief  outline  is 
taken. 

The  religious  units  known  as  "Consistories" 
formed  the  basis  of  the  Huguenot  church  au- 
tonomy and  were  grouped  into  "Colloquies," 
composed  of  ministers  alone,  these  bodies  hav- 
ing full  powers  of  supervision  and  discipline 
together  with  the  right  of  filling  pastoral  va- 
cancies, subject  to  the  veto  power  of  a  con- 
sistory in  the  event  of  the  assignment  of  an 
uncongenial  minister.jit  is  to  be  observed  that 
the  size  of  the  different  colloquies  was  no  doubt 
determined  by  geographical  considerations,  as 
the  question  of  distances  cuta  very  large  figure 
in  those^  days  when  journeys  by  land  could 
only  be  made  on  foot  or  on  horseback.!  The 
next  higher  organizations  were  the  "Provin- 
cial Synods"  with  similar  powers,  which  took 
in  all  the  consistories  and  colloquies  within 
each  of  the  many  provinces  into  which  France 
was  then  divided,  the  membership  being  made 
up  of  one  pastor  and  one  elder  for  each  con- 
sistory. Finally,  the  whole  system  was  sub- 
ordinated and  governed  by  a  "  National  Synod  " 
consisting  of  two  pastors  and  two  elders  se- 
lected 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     39 

lected  by  each  provincial  synod  from  its  own 
members.  / 

The  real  authority,  as  is  plain,  was  vested 
in  the  ministers,  or  "pasteurs"  as  they  were 
commonly  called,  and  although  the  religious 
structure  at  its  inception  depended  upon  the 
votes  of  the  congregations  which  organized 
their  own  consistories,  the  prerogatives  of  the 
self-constituted  electors  seem  to  have  ended 
then  and  there,  all  that  remained  being  the 
veto  power  just  mentioned.  Felice  suggests 
that  the  idea  of  the  political  equality  of  all 
French  citizens  was  derived  from  the  equality 
of  the  members  of  the  Huguenot  congrega- 
tions, that  being  the  principle  upon  which  the 
Reformed  Church  was  primarily  organized; 
but  this  is  perhaps  somewhat  far-fetched,  as 
the  electoral  privilege,  apparently,  was  only 
once  exercised  and  then  because  the  prob- 
lem could  not  well  be  solved  in  any  other 
way.  Several  writers,  moreover,  have  not 
hesitated  to  ascribe  the  love  of  liberty  which 
animated  the  emigrating  Huguenots  to  the 
presumed  democratic  nature  of  their  church. 
While  it  is  entirely  true  that  they  were  pas- 
sionate lovers  of  liberty,  this  sentiment  does 

not 


40     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

not  seem  to  have  emanated  from  any  religious 
source,  but  rather  to  have  been  engendered 
by  the  cruel  oppression  which  had  so  long 
deprived  them  of  almost  every  civil  and  per- 
sonal right. 

During  the  centuries  which  elapsed  from 
the  Reformation  to  the  promulgation  of  the 
Edict  of  Toleration,  no  change  whatever  can 
be  discerned  in  the  fundamental  characteristics 
of  our  Huguenot  ancestors.  Their  piety  and 
morality,  their  integrity  and  courage,  their 
industry  and  thrift,  their  readiness  to  sacri- 
fice all  material  things  for  the  sake  of  principle, 
and  their  most  persistent  and  determined  spirit 
of  opposition  to  every  form  of  religious  op- 
pression, remained  unaltered  and  unaffected. 
/  Some  of  their  most  cherished  ideals,  however, 
were  necessarily  modified  or  obliterated  by  the 
march  of  events,  and  chief  among  these  were 
their  passionate  affection  for  the  person  of  the 
sovereign  and  the  fervid  zeal  with  which  they 
supported  his  authority. 

Upon  the  promulgation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  by  Henry  IV  in  1598,  the  Huguenots 
were  intensely  appreciative  of  the  religious  lib- 
erty which  he  accorded   to  them,  and  their 

gratitude 


v./ 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     41 

gratitude  was  evidenced  by  the  most  ardent 
and  unbounded  loyalty  to  that  monarch  and 
to  the  House  of  Bourbon  of  which  he  was 
the  head  —  a  sentiment  which  was  strongly 
endorsed  and  encouraged  by  the  Reformed 
Church.  Their  unflinching  fidelity  during  the 
various  insurrections  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIII  was  fully  recognized  by  that  monarch, 
and  throughout  the  troubles  and  disorders 
which  ensued  after  the  accession  of  his  son, 
Louis  XIV,  under  the  regency  of  his  mother, 
Anne  of  Austria,  they  vigorously  supported 
the  Crown  and  notably  at  the  time  of  the  great 
rebellion  of  the  Fronde  which  was  set  on  foot 
by  his  Catholic  subjects. 

The  services  of  our  Huguenot  forefathers 
were  publicly  acknowledged  by  the  Queen 
Regent  as  well  as  by  Cardinal  Mazarin,  who, 
speaking  presumably  in  his  capacity  of  Prime 
Minister  and  not  as  a  member  of  the  Sacred 
College,  always  referred  to  them  as  his  "  good 
friends."  Nor  was  the  young  king  lacking  in 
professions  of  profuse  gratitude,  though  these 
were  destined  to  be  soon  forgotten.  His  "De- 
claration" of  May,  1652,  set  forth  that  inas- 
much as  his  Protestant  subjects,  to  his  great 

satisfaction, 


42      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

satisfaction,  "had  given  signal  proofs  of  their 
affection  and  fidelity,"  it  was  his  will  "that 
they  be  kept  and  maintained  in  full  enjoy- 
ment of  the  Edict  of  Nantes"  and  "notably 
of  the  public  exercise  of  their  religion  despite 
any  and  all  decisions  or  decrees  to  the  con- 
trary, either  of  our  council  or  of  the  courts." 

As  a  sequel  to  the  various  troubles  and  in- 
surrections of  the  minority  of  Louis  XIV,  the 
great  nobles  had  been  shorn  of  their  power 
to  foment  disorder,  and  the  authority  of  the 
Crown  had  become  immeasurably  greater  than 
had  been  the  case  for  many  centuries.  Under 
these  new  conditions,  the  direct  military  aid 
which  the  Government  had  always  received 
from  the  Huguenots  no  longer  counted,  and 
the  intangible  assistance  known  as  moral  sup- 
port went  for  nothing  in  the  eyes  of  the  des- 
potic ruler  who  then  controlled  the  destinies 
of  France. 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Catholic  epis- 
copate which  met  in  1655  made  most  press- 
ing and  insistent  demands  upon  Louis  XIV 
for  the  gradual  abolition  of  the  religious  lib- 
erties of  his  Protestant  subjects.  Although  no 
public  announcement  was  made,  private  as- 
surances 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     43 

surances  of  his  acquiescence  were  undoubt- 
edly given,  as  a  change  of  attitude  on  the  part 
of  the  Government  was  plainly  revealed  dur- 
ing the  ensuing  year.  Thenceforward  a  long 
series  of  edicts  and  "declarations"  began  to 
nullify  little  by  little  the  rights  and  privileges 
ot  the  Huguenots  as  guaranteed  in  perpetuity 
by  Henry  IV  and  specifically  confirmed  by 
his  son  and  grandson.  Louis  XIV  seems  to 
have  had  not  the  slightest  hesitation  in  inau- 
gurating this  new  policy,  although  it  involved 
the  open  repudiation  of  his  own  public  "De- 
claration "  of  1652  and  the  merciless  and  ever- 
increasing  persecution  of  his  Protestant  sub- 
jects which  for  so  many  years  preceded  the 
promulgation  of  the  Edict  of  Revocation. 

Under  the  terms  of  this  calamitous  meas- 
ure, the  two  hundred  and  forty-three  Re- 
formed churches  still  in  existence  were  de- 
molished, ail  meetings  of  Protestants  for  re- 
ligious purposes  were  prohibited,  all  ministers 
of  the  Reformed  Church  (unless  willing  to 
abjure  their  faith)  were  ordered  to  quit  the 
country  within  a  fortnight,  and  all  Protestant 
schools  closed.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  doc- 
ument expressly  stated  that  "our  subjects  of 

the 


44     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

the  Pretended  Reformed  religion  are  per- 
mitted, until  it  shall  please  God  to  enlighten 
them,  to  reside  in  any  and  all  parts  ot  our 
kingdom,  pursue  their  avocations  and  possess 
their  property  without  being  restrained  or 
troubled  on  account  of  the  said  Pretended 
Reformed  religion,  upon  the  condition,  now 
stated,  that  they  do  not  participate  in  its  serv- 
ices nor  meet  together  for  prayer  or  other  re- 
ligious purpose  of  any  nature  whatsoever." 
This  dishonest  assurance  was  no  doubt  in- 
tended to  give  the  French  Government  a 
standing  with  the  Protestant  Powers  of  Eu- 
rope as  well  as  to  conceal  for  the  moment 
the  prearranged  plan  o{  enlightening  his  "sub- 
jects of  the  Pretended  Reformed  Church  "  by 
means  of  the  "  dragonnade  "  —  one  of  the  most 
cruel  and  malignant  forms  of  religious  perse- 
cution which  human  wickedness  had  ever 
devised. 

It  consisted  of  quartering  troops  in  the 
homes  of  the  unhappy  Protestants  who  de- 
clined to  abjure  their  faith,  the  soldiers  being 
not  only  authorized  but  directly  encouraged 
to  commit  every  excess  short  of  rape  arid 
murder.  With  oaths  and  imprecations,  they 

strode 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     45 

strode  as  masters  into  the  Huguenot  domi- 
ciles, abused  the  men,  insulted  the  women, 
appropriated  silverware,  rings,  jewels,  and 
everything  of  pecuniary  value  :  moreover,  not 
content  with  eating  and  drinking  of  the  best 
that  the  house  afforded,  they  compelled  their 
outraged  victims  to  purchase  for  their  con- 
sumption all  attainable  delicacies.  The  military 
"guests"  next  proceeded  to  supply  themselves 
with  cash  by  selling  the  domestic  animals, 
furniture,  and  movable  property  in  general, 
after  which  they  turned  their  attention  to 
the  persons  of  their  hosts,  often  going  so  far 
as  to  force  their  abjurations  by  depriving  them 
of  sleep,  burning  their  feet  in  the  fire,  or  per- 
petrating other  atrocities.  Can  we  be  surprised 
that  the  pious  Fenelon,  then  a  simple  Catholic 
ecclesiastic,  but  later  Archbishop  of  Cambrai, 
having  occasion  to  refer  to  the  dragonnade, 
could  not  help  saying  that  by  such  proceed- 
ings it  would  be  as  easy  to  convert  a  people 
to  the  religion  of  Mahomet  as  to  make  them 
Catholics! 
/  While  the  immediate  result  or  the  Rev- 

ocation  was    to  stimulate   emigration  to  an 
unparalleled    extent,    about   half  a    million 

French 


46      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

French  Huguenots  stood  their  ground  and 
refused  to  leave  their  homes  at  any  cost.  Al- 
though compelled  by  military  violence  to 
affix  their  signatures  to  perfunctory  abjura- 
tions and  in  consequence  officially  known  as 
"New  Catholics"  or  "Religionnaires,"  they 
absolutely  refused  to  recognize  any  of  the 
religious  obligations  of  the  Catholic  Church  or 
attend  its  services^  but  maintained  their  Prot- 
estant faith  by  family  prayers  and  exhorta- 
tions in  the  privacy  of  their  homes,  as  well  as 
by  meetings  for  devotional  purposes  held  by 
stealth  in  secluded  places. 

During  the  very  year  which  followed  the 
Revocation,  the  so-called  "New  Catholics" 
began  to  hold  clandestine  meetings  for  Prot- 
estant worship;  and  whenever  a  banished 
"  pasteur,"  braving  the  perils  of  the  scaffold, 
came  back  in  disguise,  they  courageously 
gathered  around  him.  In  spite  of  the  cruel 
persecution  which  had  been  their  lot  for  so 
many  years;  in  spite  of  the  destruction  of 
their  churches,  the  banishment  of  their  min- 
isters and  the  annihilation  of  their  religious 
liberties ;  in  spite  of  the  forcible  abduction  of 
their  children  and  of  the  brutalities  of  the 

dragonnade 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     47 

dragonnade  —  which  has  been  touched  upon 
in  some  detail  so  as  to  give  an  idea  of  their 
enormity  —  the  "  Rehgionnaires"  or  non- 
emigrating  Huguenots  persistently  refused 
to  abate  in  the  smallest  degree  their  long- 
cherished  dogma  of  individual  fealty  to  the 
sovereign! 

Wonderful  as  it  may  seem,  the  spirit  of 
intense  loyalty  to  the  person  of  "our  King," 
as  they  called  him,  was  still  in  full  existence, 
and  the  secret  religious  meetings  which  the 
persecuted  Huguenots  held  in  caves,  woods, 
and  other  hiding-places,  invariably  concluded 
with  a  prayer  for  the  King  and  for  every 
member  of  the  royal  family  —  a  fact  as  touch- 
ing as  it  was  amazing  in  view  of  the  unre- 
lenting persecution  from  which  they  had  so 
long  suffered.  The  principle  of  heredity  and 
the  innate  respect  accorded  to  the  ideals  and 
emotions  which  animated  their  forefathers,  no 
less  than  the  Christian  duty  of  forgiving  their 
enemies,  may  perhaps  explain  the  abiding 
fidelity  of  the  non-emigrating  Huguenots  to 
the  person  of  their  sovereign ;  but  how  can 
we  account  for  the  astounding  political  idiocy 
of  a  monarch  who  deliberately  used  every 

effort 


48      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

effort  to  trample  under  foot  and  destroy  that 
ultra-loyal  spirit  of  personal  allegiance  which 
several  millions  of  his  most  faithful  and  ca- 
pable subjects  had  for  generations  so  treely 
and  unreservedly  extended  to  him  and  his 
dynasty*? 

As  late  as  the  20th  of  August,  1719  (four 
years  after  the  death  of  Louis  XIV  and  thirty- 
four  years  after  the  Revocation),  the  banished 
"pasteur,"  Jacques  Basnage,  formerly  a  min- 
ister of  the  Reformed  Church  at  Rouen  and 
still  very  influential  in  Normandy,  addressed 
a  pastoral  letter  to  his  Huguenot  brethren  in 
France  exhorting  them  to  hold  fast  to  the 
faith  and  be  loyal  to  the  King!  The  ingrained 
sentiment  of  personal  devotion  to  the  head  of 
the  House  of  Bourbon  still  lingered  even 
during  the  year  immediately  preceding  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  long-cherished 
Huguenot  ideal  was  only  finally  shattered  and 
destroyed  by  that  supreme  political  convulsion. 

Let  me  now  say  something  about  the  fourth 
and  last  period  of  Huguenot  history,  extend- 
ing from  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1685  to  the  issuance  of  the  Edict 
of  Toleration  in  1787,  a  period  of  more  than 

one 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     49 

one  hundred  and  one  years.  As  already  stated, 
the  first  result  of  the  Revocation  was  to  in- 
crease emigration  to  an  unparalleled  extent, 
as  the  vast  majority  of  the  Huguenots  were 
determined  to  avoid  further  persecution  by 
seeking  a  refuge  in  foreign  lands.  The  one 
thought  of  the  Government,  however,  was  to 
prevent  this  exodus,  and  the  intendants  were 
ordered  to  redouble  their  vigilance,  while  edicts 
and  "declarations,"  intended  to  augment  the 
difficulties  ot  escape,  came  thick  and  fast  from 
Paris.  Thousands  of  departing  Protestants 
died  of  exhaustion,  cold,  or  hunger;  were  lost 
at  sea,  or  were  killed  by  the  guards  and  pa- 
trols which  swarmed  along  the  coasts  and 
frontiers.  Thousands  more  were  seized  and 
cast  into  the  different  prisons  which  were 
packed  to  their  utmost  capacity — the  men, 
as  fast  as  they  could  be  tried,  being  sentenced 
to  the  galleys  for  life,  and  the  women  to  have 
their  heads  shaved  and  be  permanently  con- 
fined in  convents.  Notwithstanding  all  these 
barbarities,  the  authorities  found  it  impossi- 
ble to  check  the  mighty  impulse  of  expatria- 
tion, and  multitudes  succeeded  in  getting 
safely  out  of  the  country  in  spite  of  all  efforts 

to  detain 


50     Story    of    the    Huguenots 

to  detain  them.  The  fugitives,  who  carried 
with  them  very  large  sums  of  money,  included 
the  vast  majority  of  the  bankers,  manufac- 
turers, and  great  merchants  of  the  kingdom, 
as  well  as  most  of  its  highly  skilled  artisans 
and  tradespeople.  Although  the  Government 
was  able  to  seize  and  sequester  the  real  estate 
of  those  who  fled,  it  could  not  prevent  enor- 
mous monetary  transfers  to  foreign  ports,  the 
large  financial  interests  of  the  country  as  well 
as  its  commercial  and  industrial  affairs  being 
to  a  very  great  extent  under  Huguenot  con- 
trol. 

Another  equally  ruinous  result  of  the  Edict 
of  Revocation  was  the  almost  entire  destruc- 
tion of  French  industry  and  the  total  disap- 
pearance of  several  lines  of  production.  More 
than  two-thirds  of  the  workshops  and  factories 
of  the  kingdom  were  closed  by  reason  of  the 
flight  of  the  proprietors  and  their  employees  : 
in  Rouen  and  its  vicinity,  the  economic  con- 
sequences of  the  Revocation  were  specially 
disastrous  and  the  population  was  diminished 
by  twenty  thousand  souls.  Not  only  were  the 
manufactures  of  the  country  practically  de- 
stroyed, but  foreign  competition  was  prodi- 
giously 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     51 

giously  increased,  as  the  fugitive  Huguenots 
largely  created  and  maintained  the  industrial 
prosperity  of  rival  pov^^ers. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  financial  and 
economic  conditions  of  the  kingdom  became 
desperate  and  the  whole  country  was  reduced 
to  misery  by  an  act  of  abominable  tyranny 
which  not  only  set  at  naught  the  basic  prin- 
ciples of  Christianity  in  the  pretended  inter- 
ests of  religion,  but  outraged  the  most  ele- 
mentary conceptions  ot  wise  statesmanship — 
a  measure  insisted  upon  by  the  dignitaries 
of  the  Catholic  Church  and  mainly  brought 
about  by  the  persistent  efforts  of  the  King's 
Jesuit  confessor,  Pere  La  Chaise,  whom  Fen- 
elon  described  as  "a  man  of  coarse  and  nar- 
row mind,  distrustful  of  solid  virtue,  but  ap- 
preciative of  those  of  relaxed  moral  principles, 
who  kept  the  King  in  complete  ignorance, 
like  a  blind  man  leading  the  blind/' 

Upon  the  death  of  Louis  XIV,  the  Duke 
of  Orleans  became  Regent  of  France.  As 
he  was  indifferent  to  matters  of  religion,  the 
"New  Catholics"  hoped  for  some  alleviation 
of  their  miseries;  and,  although  the  dread  of 
possible   trouble    made    him   averse  to  any 

change 


52      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

change  in  the  ecclesiastical  laws,  he  ordered 
the  release  from  the  galleys  of  a  number  of 
Protestants  and  did  not  interfere  with  those 
who  desired  to  leave  the  country.  Notwith- 
standing his  comparative  leniency,  the  abjur- 
ing Huguenots  were  everywhere  harassed  and 
persecuted  by  the   intendants,  who   were  su- 
preme in  the  various  provinces.   In  this  they 
were  aided  and  abetted  by  the  priests,  who, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  were  particularly 
incensed  because  the  very  people  who  had 
been  forced    by   military  violence    to   make 
perfunctory  renunciation  of  their  own  faith, 
continued  to  ignore  the  obligations  of  a  reli- 
gion to  which  they  were  absolutely  opposed. 
Upon  the  decease  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans 
in  December,  1723,  his  powers  devolved  upon 
the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  with  the  title  of  Prime 
Minister,  who  hastened  to  restore  to  the  Cath- 
olic Church  the   political  ascendency  which 
it   formerly  possessed.  Although    there    had 
been  no  change  whatever  in  religious  condi- 
tions since  the  death  of  Louis  XIV,  the  new 
Government,  with  the  usual  fatuity  of  ecclesi- 
astical regimes,  decided  to  treat  the  Hugue- 
nots with  increased  severity.  This  was  by  no 

means 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     53 

means  an  easy  task,  as  human  ingenuity  had 
exhausted  itself  in  devising  additional  methods 
by  which  the  long-suffering  Protestants  could 
be  persistently  harassed ;  and,  when  a  new 
"Declaration,"  dealing  with  them,  was  issued 
May  14,  1724,  in  the  name  of  Louis  XV,  a 
boy  of  thirteen,  it  proved  to  be  nothing  more 
than  a  recapitulation  of  every  cruel  and  vin- 
dictive measure  then  in  force,  aggravated  by 
much  heavier  punishments  for  all  offences. 
For  once,  however,  clerical  intolerance  had 
overshot  the  mark :  the  merciless  and  wholly 
unnecessary  increase  of  penalties,  already  too 
severe,  was  more  than  the  courts  of  parlia- 
ment could  stand,  and  the  "  Declaration  "  was 
pronounced  impracticable  so  far  as  the  imposi- 
tion of  sentences  was  concerned,  with  the  result 
that  matters  went  on  pretty  much  as  before. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  lot  of  the  half- 
million  or  more  adherents  of  the  Reformed 
Church  who  remained  in  France  was  infinitely 
harder  than  that  of  their  brethren  who  had 
fled  the  country  and  were  in  full  enjoyment 
of  religious  freedom.  No  self-respecting  Prot- 
estant could  have  his  offspring  baptized  in 
the  French  Catholic  churches,  as  their  names 

were 


54      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

were  entered  in  the  registers  as  "  bastards  "  or 
"  natural  children  "  because  the  parents  had 
not  been  married  by  Catholic  rites;  nor  could 
he  contract  a  legal  marriage  without  first  mak- 
ing confession  to  a  priest  and  taking  the 
communion,  the  result  being  that  the  nuptial 
celebrations  of  the  Huguenots  as  well  as  their 
baptisms  were  relegated  to  their  clandestine 
meetings  and  were  nullities  in  the  eyes  of  the 
law.  The  right  of  burial  was  also  denied  if 
the  last  sacraments  of  the  Catholic  Church 
had  not  been  accepted,  and  for  many  years 
the  Huguenot  dead  were  interred  by  stealth 
in  fields,  gardens,  or  even  in  cellars,  the  only 
ceremony  being  the  hurried  prayers  of  those 
who  laid  the  remains  to  rest.  Moreover,  the 
kidnapping  of  children  for  the  purpose  of 
immuring  them  in  convents  and  bringing 
them  up  as  Catholics,  though  inaugurated  in 
previous  years,  was  greatly  increased  in  fre- 
quency, and  for  more  than  two  generations 
no  Protestant  household  in  which  young 
children  dwelt  was  ever  free  from  the  horri- 
ble dread  of  their  forcible  abduction. 

We  have  seen  that  after  the  Revocation 
the  Huguenots  throughout  France  lost  no  time 

in  holding 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     55 

in  holding  "assemblees  au  desert,"  as  they 
styled  their  secret  religious  gatherings  in  un- 
frequented places,  and  this  practice  was  kept 
up  for  a  great  many  years,  the  services  being 
conducted  by  lay  preachers  or  exhorters  in  the 
absence  of  a  pastor.  As  the  years  passed,  how- 
ever, nearly  all  of  the  banished  ministers,  who 
visited  France  in  disguise  to  attend  to  the  spir- 
itual needs  of  the  faithful,  had  perished  on 
the  scaffold  or  were  undergoing  life  sentences 
in  prison,  which  was  an  important  factor  in 
making  the  resistance  of  the  Huguenots  less 
effective. 

They  had  not  lost  heart,  but  had  failed  to 
perceive  the  necessity  of  proper  organization, 
and  about  1 730,  Antoine  Court,  then  a  Prot- 
estant lay  preacher  in  the  south  of  France, 
but  later  one  of  the  most  prominent  divines 
of  the  Reformed  Church,  undertook  to  rem- 
edy the  situation.  He  saw  clearly  that  the 
Huguenots  in  the  various  provinces  must 
keep  in  touch  with  one  another  and  no  longer 
lean  upon  their  brethren  in  other  countries, 
that  they  must  depend  upon  themselves, 
must  quietly  reorganize  their  "  consistories  " 
and  recruit  their  "pasteurs"  from  their  own 

numbers. 


^6      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

numbers.  As  his  recommendations  were  uni- 
versally approved,  the  members  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  began  almost  everywhere  to 
reconstitute  their  consistories  under  the  su- 
pervision of  lay  preachers,  to  send  young  men 
to  Lausanne  in  Switzerland  to  prepare  for  the 
ministry,  and  to  hold  more  frequent  "  assem- 
blees  au  desert."  In  brief,  the  Huguenot  forces 
were  entirely  reorganized,  were  better  fitted 
to  continue  their  brave  resistance,  and  were 
animated  by  new  hope  and  determination. 

This  realignment  of  the  Protestant  "  per- 
sonnel" coincided  with  a  growing  change  of 
public  opinion  in  France,  and  as  early  as 
1754  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  that  age  and 
generation,  the  broad-minded,  sagacious,  and 
far-seeing  Turgot,  had  not  hesitated  to  advo- 
cate the  entire  separation  of  Church  and  State. 
The  impossible  nature,  from  an  administrative 
and  judicial  standpoint,  of  the  religious  con- 
ditions then  existing  had  long  been  realized 
also  by  most  of  the  French  statesmen  and 
magistrates,  as  well  as  by  the  members  of  the 
legal  profession  in  general.  Then,  too,  very 
many  just  and  fair-minded  Catholics  began 
to  deplore  an  intolerance  which  had  com- 
pletely 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     57 

pletely  abrogated  the  natural  rights  of  their 
Huguenot  compatriots,  then  numbering  more 
than  a  miUion  souls  by  virtue  of  the  normal 
increase  of  population,  and  despite  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  Catholic  clergy  this  feeling  grew 
and  made  itself  felt  throughout  the  whole 
land.  Moreover,  the  French  officers,  with  La- 
fayette at  their  head,  who  had  fought  in  the 
American  Revolution,  were  no  mean  factors 
in  this  change  of  sentiment,  as  their  ideas  had 
become  broader  and  more  liberal  by  reason 
of  their  services  in  the  New  World. 

In  February,  1785",  Lafayette  wrote  to 
Washington  that:  "The  French  Protestants 
are  the  victims  of  an  intolerable  despotism: 
although  for  the  moment  not  openly  perse- 
cuted, their  future  depends  upon  the  caprices. 
of  the  King,  of  the  Queen,  of  the  parliaments, 
or  of  the  ministers  of  state:  their  marriages 
are  not  legal;  their  wills  are  null  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law;  their  children  are  considered  as 
bastards  and  their  persons  as  subjects  for  the 
gallows."  Under  date  of  September  1,  1785, 
Washington  replied  that  his  best  wishes  at- 
tended all  the  objects  which  Lafayette  had  in 
view,  but  advised  him  to  proceed  cautiously 

as  the 


58      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

as  the  surest  means  of  securing  ultimate  suc- 
cess. In  October  of  the  following  year  a  me- 
morial of  the  terrible  condition  of  the  Prot- 
estants was  submitted  to  Louis  XVI  by  his 
Minister  and  Secretary  of  State,  the  Baron 
de  Breteuil.  Although  he  was  a  Catholic  by 
religion,  nothing  could  have  been  clearer, 
fairer,  or  more  emphatic  than  this  famous  re- 
port, which  discussed  the  whole  question  in 
great  detail  and  demonstrated  beyond  dis- 
pute the  urgent  necessity  for  appropriate 
action. 

At  the  last  session  of  the  Assembly  of  No- 
tables, in  the  spring  of  1 787,  Lafayette  offered 
a  resolution  in  the  second  "  bureau  "  of  that 
body  setting  forth  that  "  a  portion  of  our  fel- 
low-citizens who  do  not  profess  Catholicism 
find  themselves  condemned  to  a  sort  of  civil 
annihilation,"  and  requesting  His  Majesty  to 
put  an  end  to  this  state  of  perpetual  proscrip- 
tion, "  equally  opposed  to  the  interests  of  his 
people  as  a  whole  and  to  the  industrial  devel- 
opment of  the  nation,  as  well  as  to  every 
principle  of  morality  and  sound  policy."  A 
few  days  later,  Lafayette  wrote  as  follows  to 
the  eminent  American,  John  Jay,  of  New 

York : 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     59 

York :  "  On  the  final  day  of  our  session,  I 
had  the  honor  ot  offering  a  resolution,  which 
was  adopted  almost  unanimously,  in  regard 
to  our  French  Protestants.  It  was  presented 
to  the  King  by  the  Comte  d'Artois,  our  Pres- 
ident, and  graciously  received.  I  was  gener- 
ously supported  by  a  prelate  of  learning  and 
virtue  [La  Luzerne,  Catholic  Bishop  of  Lan- 
gres],  who  spoke  admirably  in  support  of  my 
resolution,  to  which  the  bureau  added  various 
complimentary  phrases  in  regard  to  the  Roman 
faith."  On  the  15th  of  August  following, 
Washington  wrote  to  Lafayette :  "  I  ardently 
trust  that  you  may  succeed  in  your  efforts  to 
secure  tolerance  in  matters  of  religion.  Not 
having  myself  a  bigoted  attachment  to  any 
form  of  worship,  I  am  in  favor  of  allowing 
all  good  Christians  to  take  the  road  to  Heaven 
which  seems  to  them  to  be  the  most  direct, 
the  most  simple,  the  easiest,  and  the  one  least 
liable  to  religious  controversies." 

The  Edict  of  Toleration  was  signed  by 
Louis  X\T  in  November,  1787,  and  sub- 
mitted to  the  Parliament  of  Paris  on  the  19th 
of  that  month,  its  registration  by  that  body 
practically  giving  it  the  force  of  law,  as  the 

provincial 


6o     Story   of   the    Huguenots 

provincial  parliaments   could  always  be  de- 
pended  upon   to   follow   the   lead  of  Paris. 
Most  persistent  and  determined  efforts  were 
made  to  prevent  the  registration  of  the  Edict, 
but  Louis  XVI  could  not  be  moved.   He  said 
to  the  three  presidents  of  the  Parliament  whom 
he  had  summoned  to  Versailles:  "I  propose 
to  repeal  the  penal   laws  against  the  Protes- 
tants, which  are  offensive  to  justice  and  hu- 
manity." The  court  ladies  busied  themselves 
in  making  personal  appeals  to  each  and  every 
member  of  the  Parliament,  while  the  ecclesi- 
astics made  their  protests  directly  to  the  sov- 
ereign, who  stood  alone,  not  having  the  sup- 
port   of   his    Prime    Minister,    Lomenie    de 
Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse.  In  marked 
contrast  to  the  broad-minded  Christian  spirit 
which  had  animated  the  Bishop  of  Langres 
when  he  supported  Lafayette  in  the  Assem- 
bly of  Notables,  the   Archbishop   of  Paris, 
accompanied  by  fifteen  Catholic  bishops,  de- 
manded an  audience   and  made  an   earnest 
plea  for  delay.  Their  efforts  were   in  vain; 
the  reply  of  Louis  XVI  to  all  of  their  repre- 
sentations being:  "  It  is  my  will  that  the  Edict 
be  registered." 

Under 


Story    of    the    Huguenots     6i 

Under  the  terms  of  the  Edict  of  Toleration, 
the  French  Protestants  were  granted  the  right 
to  exercise  any  profession  or  trade,  free  from 
any  interference  on  religious  grounds,  to  con- 
tract legal  marriages  before  the  civil  authorities, 
to  rehabilitate  legally  the  secret  matrimonial 
alliances  and  baptisms  of  the  past,  to  register 
the  births  of  their  children,  and,  finally,  to 
enjoy  the  rights  of  Christian  burial  in  their 
own  cemeteries  and  at  such  hours  as  they 
deemed  proper.  In  brief,  every  right  and  privi- 
lege of  French  citizenship  from  which  the  Hu- 
guenots had  been  so  long  debarred,  were 
freely  and  unreservedly  restored  to  them  and 
an  end  was  put,  once  and  for  all,  to  the  unjust 
discriminations  from  which  they  had  so  cruelly 
suffered  in  the  past.  More  than  this,  Louis 
XVI  announced  his  intention  of  restoring 
their  sequestered  property  and  of  extending 
such  other  measures  of  relief  as  might  be  found 
desirable,  but  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution precluded  further  action.  The  Edict  of 
Toleration,  it  is  true,  did  not  formally  recog- 
nize the  Reformed  Church  as  a  religious  entity 
in  France,  an  omission  which  was  probably 
judicious  in  view  of  the  conditions  then  ex- 
isting, 


62      Story    of    the    Huguenots 

isting,  and  at  all  events  was  in  complete  ac- 
cord with  the  ideas  of  Washington,  who,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  counselled  Lafayette  to 
proceed  with  prudence,  the  precise  language 
used  being:  "  Remember,  my  dear  friend,  that 
it  is  a  principle  of  the  military  art  to  recon- 
noitre and  feel  your  way  before  advancing  too 
far." 

Thus  at  one  blow  the  whole  contemptible 
fabric  of  hate  and  outrage  so  studiously  built 
up  under  the  reigns  of  Louis  XIV  and  Louis 
XV  was  swept  away.  The  grandchildren  of  the 
persecuted  Huguenots,  who  had  refused  at  all 
costs  to  abandon  their  homes  and   firesides, 
emerged  victorious  from  the  long-fought  con- 
test which   for   three   generations   had   been 
carried   on  with   unsurpassed    fortitude    and 
resolution./  Is  there  anything  recorded  in  the 
pages  of  history  which  excels  the  persistent 
^^r     (.JSnd  unflinching  stand  of  the  non-emigrating 
U      ^^y^vpnuguenots?  And  where  in  the  annals  of  the 
.  r/      oy>       past  can  we  find  a  braver  and  more  deter- 
^  a'  mined  resistance  to  oppression,  or  a 

people  more   strongly  animated 
by  the  love  of  their  country 
and  the  fear  of  their      ] 
God  ?  ^ 


o 
o 


in 

•■TO  (M 


■\ 


